Ormond Retiree Has Goals, Keeps Independence At 105

March 11, 2001|By DONNA CALLEA The (Daytona Beach) News Journal

ORMOND BEACH — Make no mistake. At 105, Giuseppe Lampone is not as vigorous as he once was. He walks slowly, with a cane. And no one is likely to mistake him for a youngster of, say, 70 or 80 -- in other words, to put him in the same age range as his kids.

But when he's driving his three-wheeled motorized scooter, tooling around town at 25 mph, waving to neighbors as he heads to the bank or the store or the barber shop, it's clear that when it comes to acting his age, Lampone is in a class by himself.

"I don't feel that old," says the retired tailor in an accent evoking his native Sicily. Born Feb. 23, 1896, in the town of Castroreale, he also hasn't lost any of his Old World charm, offering a visitor grapes and not taking no for an answer.

He eats a lot of grapes, he says, and other fruits and vegetables -- especially beans, chick peas and lentils -- and enjoys a glass or two of red wine every day.

"I drink wine since the day I born," jokes Lampone, who modestly admits he's also a pretty good cook. He prepares pasta and other dishes (his specialty is chicken cutlets) for himself in the kitchen of the spotless and comfortably decorated mobile home he shared with his wife, Gina, until she died four years ago.

He even makes lunch for the woman who comes to clean his house and do his laundry once a week.

But if you ask Lampone for the secret to his longevity, how he manages to stay so active and independent at 105, he answers honestly, with a shrug: "I can't tell you." It's not as if it runs in his family. His father died at 55 and his mother at 62. And he did have at least one bad habit. He smoked cigarettes but gave them up when he was 78.

He's been lucky, though, to have had "a good life, a good wife, and good love," he says.

"I been working hard, raise children, work, work, work, and here I am."

One of 10 siblings, Lampone left his village as a young man to fight in World War I, which he refers to as "Numero Uno," and afterward settled in the nearby city of Barcelona, Sicily, where he met the love of his life.

Gina was just 13 when they met. "A baby," he says. He was 10 years older. But neither could deny their feelings for each other. She was 14 when they married, with her parents' blessings, and they lived happily together for 78 years.

"I was crazy for her," Lampone says.

Their first daughter was born in Sicily, and then the young tailor moved his family to the United States in 1921, hoping to earn a better living. Three more girls and a boy were born here, and the family did well, settling first in New Jersey and then in Ohio. Lampone says he always preferred living in the country to big cities. "I grew everything in my garden." After retiring from tailoring, he and Gina moved about 30 years ago to Florida, where four of the children now live. Lampone has a son in Winter Springs and daughters in DeBary, Ormond Beach and Sun City Center.

He's grateful for his loving family, he says, which includes many grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren.

But he prefers to live on his own now that Gina is gone.

"They love me," he says of his children. "I love them." But "I'm very independent."

Although he had heart surgery not long ago and has had a fall or two, Lampone says he is in good health. In fact, every time he gets his blood pressure taken, the nurse always tells him it's better than hers, he says.

And every day, unless it's raining, "I go out in my scooter," he says, "to check the mail ... to go to the store to look around." To do what he needs to do.

After his wife died, Lampone says he returned alone for a visit to Sicily, where he still has family. While there, he was presented with a gold medal by the mayor of his old home town in honor of his 100th birthday. Home, however, is where he is now.

Lampone knows not many people live independently for as long as he has. But breaking longevity records is not his goal.